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Wednesday, September 22, 2010

New Mecha Artwork!
This is something I recently did; a sentient robotic morphing unit designed for my DSNG sci fi e-book series. Maybe it will be converted into a comic book instead... we'll see. The robot-mode and the vehicle-mode are shown, along with the inked prelims.

The name of this robot is Buster SRM#05, and it is my original creation. It has 3 modes: sports car, hovercraft and droid. The twin blasters upon its frontal hood are retractable, and they are used as arm-mounted weapons in its droid-mode. Buster SRM#05 [or "Buster" for short] has one monocle, which I believe is a cool touch... and yes, my robot is cooler than Robocop :)

Got some inspiration for coloring styles in Photoshop CS3 from a guy named "Citiclown" over on Youtube. If you've got about 8 minutes, check out his work:

The tough thing about drawing MECHA/ robot art is that it takes time. And depending upon where you source your basic inspiration from, it may take you even longer to contrive your desired robot sketch upon a sheet of paper [or directly into your artistic software, via graphite pen & tablet]. For example, there are many classic robot cartoons that feature transformable MECHA, such as the Gobots, King of Braves and Transformers. And the Transformer franchise has shown over the years that it is possible to reinterpret classic robot designs in a wide variety of ways. In fact, after the blockbuster Transformer movie in 2007, a new category of robots tagged by fanatics as the "Bayformers" were introduced [named after the phenomenal film's director, Michael Bay]. And the very classic robots from the 1980s animated version of Transformers are called "Generation One" [or G1].

Pencil pic & an inked pic of Bumblebee I did earlier in the year; both are tied to the movie franchise. In the TF films, there is a tendency to display inner gears and mechanized sub-systems that coherently result in the giant robot's motion. It's a novel idea, but extremely taxing from an artistic perspective.

[Above: posters/wallpapers of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee. This version of Prime is based upon the classic cartoon version, dating back to the 80s. The two Autobots shown above are featured robotic characters in the forthcoming Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon movie slated for release in the USA on June 29, 2011].

Just take a look at the classic Optimus Prime [G1/Generation 1] and compare it to the ROTF* movie version beside it. [Note: I did not draw these two pics; they're presented here as references].

*ROTF = Revenge of the Fallen. Scroll down or search for "MECHA" and you'll see more art samples from my portfolio in this blog.

BTW, if you are curious about the true forefathers of the giant robot genre, then I strongly suggest you visit Wikipedia and read this article about a great Japanese man named Go Nagai [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Nagai]. He was born in 1965, and he's still alive today. And he was the artist/author that created one of the first successful super giant robot comic books [a black and white manga series] featuring humans that sit within cockpits of giant Mecha units. And his manga series was later converted into a hit anime series. He created Mazinger Z, known as Tranzor Z in the USA.

The latest giant Mecha anime series based on the works of Go Nagai is called Mazinkaizer SKL [it is an OVA cartoon series, and its the 11th interpretation of Mazinger Z series, which was created back in 1972]. And this OVA is slated to be released towards the end of 2010.